It's hard to imagine, but there was a time when video games didn't have skill trees. Your character was fixed, static, locked in place. They were as good at shooting and jumping at the end of the game as they were at the beginning. But then, seemingly overnight, every triple-A game suddenly had one. A sprawling maze of powers, perks, upgrades, and unlockable special abilities, wiry tendrils snaking off in multiple enticing directions. This routine of earning skill points and spending them to improve your character has become an unavoidable standard—especially third-person action games. It's one of many examples of RPG design seeping into other genres. Character development in the most literal sense.
But the problem with skill trees is that they only highlight what a dull individual I can be. These systems are designed to give you the feeling that your hero is growing in power and making tangible progression. Early in Assassin's Creed Odyssey, Kassandra can't do much at all; but by the end she can Spartan Kick cultists off cliffs, shatter shields with Shield Breaker, and use Flaming Attacks to imbue her weapons with the fires of Hephaistos. But for every wild, elaborate special attack these games have, there's often a dozen more boring, practical things to spend your skill points on instead—and these are what I always go for first. Chaos Suplex? Skull Breaker? No thanks, I'll take a 5% health boost.
This habit is especially bad when I'm playing the Arkham games. Rather than spend my accumulated experience points on new takedowns, combos, and gadget upgrades—y'know, the stuff that makes the combat fun—I'll prioritise armour improvements to increase my health bar. I can't help it. I'll actively make the game less interesting for myself for a few extra HP. But the upside of this is that the early parts of the game will be easier for me than for someone who threw all their XP into fancy, shiny new moves. It's like that Wayne's World theory of doing your homework on a Friday night so you're free to just party for the rest of the weekend. See, there are benefits to being a tedious little skill tree square.
I'm the same in games with any kind of weapon upgrade system. Even if bigger, more powerful guns are being dangled tantalisingly in front of me, I'll usually ignore them and spend my money, scrap, gems, or whatever the arbitrary required currency happens to be on improving the weedy starting pistol. I like the idea of making an early low-tier gun as effective as it can possibly be before shifting my attention to the next wave of weapons. I used the standard 9MM semi-automatic pistol all the way through Resident Evil 4. I don't know why I'm like this. Perhaps it's some kind of subconscious rebellion against the concept of skill and upgrade trees, because the more I think about it, the more I'm sure I hate it.
There's something contrived and overly gamey about skill trees. In most games, I never get the sense that my character is growing organically. They aren't learning these abilities in any meaningful way; I'm just selecting things from a menu and watching as they're magically implanted in their brain. In Odyssey, why does killing a bunch of bandits give Kassandra the ability to unleash a blast of kinetic energy and knock people on their ass? Suspension of disbelief is a necessity in this medium, but I'd like these skill trees to at least make some sense within a game's internal logic—rather than simply being a bunch of superpowers the hero is granted for no good reason other than they're the main character.
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